Let’s be honest here. How many failures do you hide from the public?
You say you run an online business. Do you openly tell people that you are not getting enough traction?
Do you tell your family and your relatives that you are only making pennies and not a consistent “real” income?
I know it is hard to tell the others - especially when the others are thinking you are an “entrepreneur” and when they see you sitting in front of your computer for extended hours doing serious work.
You do work hard. You work late at night. You wake up early to catch up with those great ideas that buzz in your mind while you are half asleep.
But when you analyze the situation and review your earnings, there is disappointment, right?
You are not earning what you should be earning, given the amount of time you spend and the effort you put in your online business.
So you paint a very positive picture at the outside and hide your dreadful failures.
You say “I’m OK”, while you are not OK. You say “I’m doing great”, while you are actually dragging your feet.
I’ve been there.
I once promised my hubby that I would start making consistent income equivalent to my (then) day job so I can quit my job and take care of household too. I promised him that our family can take vacations whenever we wish while my online business will make money on its own. I told him that I will achieve this in six months.
And, I couldn’t make it, of course, in 6 months (no surprise here). So I started to tell him I’m doing great and started to hide my credit card debts.
I was spending way too much on my business than it was actually making. And I had to reveal things in about 4 months.
My hubby really put more hope on me and my business and boosted me with lots of positive words. He even agreed to fund my business for a few months. He took the load on his shoulders.
While I write this today (after about a couple of years), I can still feel that “freaky” feeling fresh in my mind - I felt SO powerless when the money was not coming in.
True story.
So how can you stop hiding failures? How do you really succeed with blogging and an online business and be proud to tell others about your success? Here you go …
Stop doing whatever you are doing
Seriously. If you hard work is not paying, something is wrong somewhere and you gotta stop working hard - not permanently, but until you figure out certain things.
I talked about getting clarity first, before putting effort into your blog in my previous posts. I suggest you read them:
5 Key things you should know if you promised yourself to make money online
5 Reasons that force you to quit blogging (and how to fix them)
If you are working hard on your blog and not getting results you should first stop working hard and go back to square one. Go to the starting point. Get clarity first.
Working without clarity will rip you off both in terms of money and effort. You will be working for long hours, getting less sleep, ruining your health, AND spending money for nothing.
Surely you will have to hide your failures because if your family and friends see that you are not making money they will not encourage the idea of you doing a business.
As time goes on, they will lose hope in your words (they’re not to be blamed here, right?).
In addition get help from people who have experience in the area. You could get your blog or business idea audited by me.
I help bloggers get clarity and help them cut off all the unnecessary efforts. I give them a really sharp plan so they don’t waste any more time, money or effort on things that don’t grow their business. If you’re interested, check this out.
Pay attention to the details
Well, some will say that you don’t have to pay attention to the details but you have to simply focus on the big picture. While it is true that you should not be obsessed with the details, ignoring the details will lead you to trouble.
In my case, I didn’t pay attention to the income sources and the exact income and expenditure that was involved in my business. I was blogging blindly and I was so wrong with my assumptions.
I was thinking that certain income sources were giving me the consistent income I was getting. And, I was doing stuff so I could build more on those income sources that I was thinking to be profitable.
Later on when I started paying attention to the detail, and when I started to look into my income profile, I found out that I was totally wrong. I was simply working on things that was not making me money. More importantly, I was ignoring those areas that were earning me money.
If I had done this analysis before I would have saved a lot of effort on my part.
I suggest you to look into your earning sources, traffic sources, conversion sources etc. once every two weeks and file the details.
I have spreadsheets for tracking income and other things. Now I clearly know which of my sites earn how much per month. I know which strategies bring me traffic and so on. Since I have them on my computer, I review the sheets periodically, draw graphs and get a clear picture of how my business is doing.
This helps me focus on areas that bring me money and ignore areas that do not provide me value. In short I do more of what works or what gets me results.
I simply stop spending energy and money on things that don’t make me money or improve my business.
Produce value
Most bloggers spend way too much time on learning things. Of course, learning is good. Gathering information is a must in online business. Learning helps to keep yourself updated on hot topics in your industry.
And you have to learn on a regular basis in order to expand your knowledge in your niche.
However if you simply keep on learning without taking any action, you cannot show progress and be proud of your business. You have to apply your knowledge to your business by taking action and by producing whatever is necessary to keep your business running successfully.
In particular, if you are a blogger, you have use your knowledge to create content, to market your business effectively and create content that converts. You can also use your knowledge about your potential customers to create content, products and offers that tailor made for them.
The key here is to produce.
[Click to tweet this].
If you simply keep on nourishing a plant at your garden and if the plant is not producing what you expect (fruits, veggies or flowers) then your nourishing efforts go wasted.
I hope you got the point.
Action points and takeaway
To conclude - if you are in a situation where you work really hard and if you are getting little to no results, you should stop and pay attention to the details. Find out your purpose first, then analyze your current situation and then produce value so you can build your business on a solid base.
So here’s what you need to do exactly, NOW:
- Stop doing what you are doing and get clarity first.
- Analyze your income, traffic sources and other metrics and find out what works and what doesn’t work. Do not waste any more time or money on things that don’t get you consistent results.
- Don’t just learn, but apply your knowledge to produce value in your business.
Stop hiding your failures and be a real success and build a business that you will be proud of - a business that you can proudly tell people.
